13 confirmed dead, 50 missing

Riley Sparks and Monique Muise, The Gazette07.05.2013

An onlooker watches the smoke over the town of Lac-Mégantic, 100 kilometres east of Sherbrooke, after a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded on Saturday, July 6, 2013.Dario Ayala
/ The Gazette

People attend Mass to pray for the victims of a train derailment and subsequent explosion and fire at a church in the village of Sainte-Cécile-de-Whitton, a few kilometres from Lac-Méganticon July 7, 2013. Now scores of people -- perhaps as many as 80 -- are missing. Rescuers cautiously entered the charred debris Sunday, more than 24 hours after the spectacular crash that saw flames shoot into the sky and burn into the night. The accident and resulting huge fireball forced 2,000 people from their homes. Witnesses reported up to six explosions after the train derailed at about 1:20 am in Lac-Mégantic. Four bodies were found Sunday morning, bringing the official death toll from the disaster to five.FRAN?áOIS LAPLANTE-DELAGRAVE
/ AFP/Getty Images

Workers inspect a railway car that was part of a convoy of railway cars carrying crude oil that derailed Saturday causing explosions Sunday, July 7, 2013 in Lac-Mégantic, Que.Paul Chiasson
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

UPDATE: The death toll from Saturday's explosion in Lac-Mégantic rose to 13 Monday afternoon and the Sûreté du Québec increased the number of people reported missing to 50.

Police said that out of respect for the families of those reported missing they would not say where the bodies had been found.

At a 5 p.m. news conference coroner's office spokesperson Geneviève Guilbeault urged families of the missing to present themselves at their makeshift office and said they should bring personal items that could contain the missing person's DNA, such as baseball caps, toothbrushes, razors and combs.

* * *

LAC-MÉGANTIC — Five bodies have been recovered from the site of a train explosion in downtown Lac-Mégantic, police said on Sunday afternoon.

About 40 people are still missing.

“It is a very large number, and hopefully we'll find some of them elsewhere,” Sûreté du Québec spokesperson Michel Brunet said on Sunday.

That number is not exact and may change over the next day, police said.

No further details were available about the deceased, or the conditions in which they were found.

Investigators from the provincial coroner's service were on the scene to identify and transport the dead.

The intensity of the fire has made identifying some of the bodies difficult, said Geneviève Guilbault, a spokesperson for the coroner's office.

At least 100 SQ officers are working in the town, which is located 216 kilometres east of Montreal. But so far they have only been able to access a small part of the explosion site.

Much of the area remains unsafe as firefighters continue to try to extinguish the remnants of the huge blaze that consumed much of the town's centre early on Saturday morning.

Some residents displaced during the evacuation will be able to return to their homes soon, likely Sunday afternoon, police said. A few blocks of houses behind the explosion site have been declared safe, but most of the scene is still closed to everyone but emergency personnel.

A ban on drinking water imposed late Saturday night has been lifted, but residents should still boil their water for at least five minutes before drinking it, Lac-Mégantic's mayor Colette Roy-Laroche said.

“There is no contaminant in our water system at the moment,” Roy-Laroche said, adding that the boil-water advisory is a precaution. She asked that residents continue to conserve water, to leave as much as possible for firefighting efforts.

Police are patrolling evacuated neighbourhoods to make sure homes aren’t looted or vandalized.

Anyone who has an urgent need to return home to get medication is urged to make their way to the Mazda garage on Laval St. and police officers will be on hand to accompany people home to retrieve belongings that are urgently needed.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will tour the devastation Sunday afternoon and has scheduled a news conference at 4:20 p.m. On Saturday, he tweeted his sympathy to residents of the stricken town, writing, "Thoughts & prayers are with those impacted in Lac-Megantic. Horrible news."

Premier Pauline Marois toured the town Saturday and said she was sad and shocked at the level of devastation. At an evening news conference Marois praised the town's mayor, Colette Roy-Larouche, for her courage and praised the team of first responders.

Benoit Quérion was inside a bar in the town's centre with about six others when the explosion happened.

"They're all dead,” he said, when asked if he thought any of the others had survived.

After hearing the first explosion, he ran outside the bar. He said that amidst the smoke and flames he couldn't see anything left of the train cars that exploded.

“I ran like hell. I was chased by the fire,” Quérion said.

His car was next to the explosion, and was completely destroyed, he said.

“The car's not a big deal. A lot of my friends were lost in there,” he said.

The explosion completely levelled more than four blocks of the small town's downtown area.

“The sky was completely blotted out, a vivid red,” said Viviane St-Pierre, who lives two blocks from the site of the explosion.

“Just as I opened my front door, the third explosion happened,” she said. “When I opened the door, fireballs went up the block. I woke up my boyfriend and said 'Hurry up, we have to go, the train's on fire.'”

St-Pierre and her boyfriend, his face still covered with streaks of black soot, were at the Red Cross shelter near the town's high school, a few kilometres from the site of the explosion, where about 163 are staying and almost 500 people are on a waiting list for shelter.

More than 150 firefighters from neighbouring towns, Sherbrooke, Maine and elsewhere in the United States battled the blaze.

The train that careened into the centre of town was unmanned when it derailed and exploded, said a spokesperson for the company that owned the locomotive.

Joseph R. McGonigle told The Gazette that shortly before midnight, the train's conductor stopped in nearby Nantes, locked the brakes and checked to ensure that the rail cars carrying thousands of litres of crude oil were all securely attached.

He then checked into a nearby Lac-Mégantic hotel for the night. Another conductor was reportedly expected to take over driving the train within a few hours.

"Sometime after (the first conductor left), the train got loose," said McGonigle, who is vice-president of marketing for The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway. "It travelled under its own inertia to the centre of the town."

The locomotive portion of the 73-car train actually detached half a mile outside of the small town, he added, but the cars carrying the oil kept on rolling. McGonigle said there are security mechanisms in place to prevent anyone from tampering with the train, and the proper checks were done by the conductor before he left the vehicle. No one except him or another employee of the company should have been able to set it in motion.

The detached back end of the train remains on the tracks, about 11 kilometres outside of Lac-Mégantic.

At least 50 cars are somewhere south-east of the town, but many appear to have been completely destroyed in the explosion.

"How did this happen?" McGonigle asked. "There are many fail-safe modes. How this happened is just beyond us."

He added that nothing like this has ever occurred before with one of the company's trains.

The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway was founded in January of 2003. According to the company's website, it owns over 510 route miles of track, serving customers in Quebec, Maine, Vermont and New Brunswick.

McGonigle said the company is assisting authorities and will continue to cooperate with the investigation into the accident.

A Facebook page has been set up to help people find missing friends or relatives and the Sûreté du Québec has also set up a Facebook page to help locate missing persons.

About 2,000 residents have been evacuated from the town and a neighbouring community after air quality tests showed the fumes were toxic and contained dangerous particles. Those residents are being housed at the local high school where the Red Cross has set up cots and is providing food.

Investigators with the Transport Safety Bureau are on the scene but are waiting for firefighters to give the all-clear before proceeding with their investigation.

The SQ is asking anyone who believes someone is missing to notify the police by calling (819) 583-2441.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.